3 Cocktails Inspired by Tampa History

Three drinks from Tampa bars that tell the city's history one sip at a time

With a name inspired by Ybor City’s iconic Cuban bakery, Jay Wells and the M. Bird team created this rum-based cocktail that incorporates a taste of the tropics (including the guava that Ybor City co-founder Gavino Gutierrez was promised but, alas, did not find in Tampa).

Add all ingredients into shaker (except Gosling’s) and shake with ice. Serve in a Collins or swizzle glass on crushed ice. Float 1 oz. Gosling’s on top. Garnish with two pineapple fronds and one filthy cherry.

Tampa’s Cuban immigrants were known for their superstitions, and one way to remove negative energy from your home or environment is to burn sage. The Current’s bar team serves this cocktail in a sage-smoked snifter “to cleanse the ‘spirit’ and the ‘host’” before the drinker’s first sip.

Thanks to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, Tampa was a hotspot for liquor smugglers and bootleggers during Prohibition. Speakeasies, also known as blind tigers or blind pigs, flourished. The Westchase cocktail bar Repeal 18 (as in, the 18th amendment, which established Prohibition) pays tribute to this period in the city’s history with 1920s-themed libations, like this one.